It was time to see how accurate the alignment of the strut was when installed in the fuselage. This is the ultimate test of how well I performed the previous steps. I leveled and aligned the fuselage per the plans, marking F.S. 124.25 (firewall) and 108.25 (leading edge of the main gear strut) and ensuring everything was square and straight. In fact I did it multiple times using my large squares and a laser. This is not the step you want to screw up because some major holes get drilled based on this alignment that would be difficult to correct.
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| Starboard (Copilot) Side |
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| Port (Pilot) Side |
After leveling the fuselage, I centered the strut between the bulkheads and dropped plumbs from the strut leading edge. I found both sides a little forward of where there were supposed to be...one about .15" forward and the other about .25". After a little adjusting of the bulkhead holes, I was able to bring both side to almost perfect. You can see in the pics the plumb basically dead on the line...just hope my line is actually correct :-).
After getting the the alignment set, I rechecked the level of the gear...amazingly still level !
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| Rechecking strut level after everything is aligned (Truth In Lending Statement: This pic is actually from a prior set up... I re-did the entire thing because the saw horse legs would move to easy when bumped and would mess up the entire setup.) |
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| Digital level showing strut still level after alignment |
The last step is the installation of the mounting hardware to the bulkheads & the gear attachment tabs.
Onward, cab
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